Once Kat heard it was time for a break, she let herself relax. She couldn't exactly melt into the chair because it didn't allow for her wings, but she could feel the time pressure melting away.
The door to the next room swung open, and as Kat was trying to relax the Timmy's all stepped through into the next room without prompting. Kat gave a look to Skye and Grace who happened to be already getting up.
"Hup" Pulling herself to her feet Kat got up and followed the Timmy's into the next room. It was a large room with a central pillar. It had the same boring walls as the previous room, and while it had more than doubled in size with a number of chairs all around the outside, it wasn't any more interesting.
Except of course for the giant clock? If you could call it that. The whole thing looked to be mechanical, with wooden blocks for the numbers. While the girls were staring at the clock the Timmy's got to the pillar and put in another cassette.
"Hello, might be weird to say that after just saying goodbye.. especially when I can see the future. That's right! I know for a fact that you walked into this clock room straight after the introduction room.
"How's that for fortune telling? Now I'll admit it might also have something to do with the fact that there's only one door, but I doubt that's actually important here. What you are seeing is my state of the art, clock pillar.
"It has four sides, each displaying the same thing, just in case you thought one was wrong, you can now be sure that all four clocks are wrong… wait no… They should be left!
"Anyway, enough jokes. You should see my standard set up. The first block measures the number of days, the second two are the hours, and the final two are the minutes. I did try to get seconds working, but I just don't have the skill to set up a device to change the blocks so fast.
"Anyway, all in all this rooms pretty simple, so just move on to the second part of the tour!"
Thyme's cassette finished and Kat couldn't help but think. So, we're on a tour now. Couldn't you have just set the whole thing up as a proper tour then if you wanted one? Kat rolled her shoulders and locked at the clock. On it, it read, 1 day, 14 hours, and 20 mins. Guess I'll have a lot of time to kill then.
Kat had a peek at the other's reactions, but Skye was intentionally keeping her face blank and Grace was still somewhat taken aback that they got to rest at all. The Timmy's though once again instantly took off towards the next room.
Skye motioned to follow them, and so Grace and Kat did, it wasn't as though there was much to see in the room. Once they left, they were led down a long corridor. As they approached the end, the door swung open automatically and revealed another open space.
This area seemed more like a lounge. It had similar couches to the other rooms, but it also had a coffee table in the middle, decorated with ornate flowers and vines.
Once again, the Timmy's led the charge with another cassette.
"Good, you're back. This room is rather simple, just a lounging area. What's actually important are the doors that branch off of it. That one on your left… assuming you are facing the same way you were if you walked in, leads to the dorms and the showers. Each person gets a room… hopefully? I prepared 6 just in case, but if not the sofa's in the lounge will have to do.
"The door on your right is the kitchen area, as well as some other recreational things like the training hall, and a board game storage cupboard. The kitchen has ingredients or prepared meals, whatever floats your sand skipper. The rest is fairly self-explanatory.
"The final door should be locked at the moment. It's your exit. Once the clock ticks down in the clock room that door will unlock and you can leave the resting site. If I find anyone trying to circumvent the door or pick the lock, I will find you and turn you into a lockpick…
"Any questions? No of course not, because I can't answer them. Goodbye"
And with that the cassette clicked of, and Grace let out a yawn, prompting both Kat and Skye to look her way.
"Well, what are you looking at? It's been a huge day. I want to grab something that barely counts for food and then go to sleep" said Grace
*I'm not exactly tired, but it's as good an idea as any* "Lead the way Grace" said Kat. Skye just nodded along as well.
Timmy's taking the lead, they headed right into another corridor. At the edge it split into two, and the Timmy's took the left path. Coming up on two double doors, the Timmy's stacked on top of each other and jumped.
This opened the door to reveal a 'kitchen'. To Kat's eyes it looked more like a massive pantry with a small kitchen attached. Once you were through the doors the room expanded massively. It was split in two halves, and then further into quarters. Right at the far end of the room was likely where the cooking and preparing area was, but the massive amount of shelving obscured it heavily.
On the right was shelves and shelves of ingredients. The first three rows were just open to the elements, but the next three were split up. The first one had heating… lamps? They were flowers beaming light down onto. The two over from that had a different flower that was blue instead of red. The area around those last two rows seemed to be iced over.
On the left was shelves of prepared dishes. The first three all had those same heating flowers. Then a break containing open air dishes with nothing keeping them fresh, then a final two that were covered with cooling flowers.
The sheer quantity and variety completely dwarfed any spread of food Kat had ever seen. There was so much food she could feed everyone in the orphanage for a month and still have food left over.
While the three girls were still taking in the sight of so much food the Timmy's were getting the cassette prepared. They opened up the 'oven' at the back of the room and threw the cassette in before shutting it closed and turning it on.
"AHHHHHH IT BURNS!!!" screamed the Thyme on the cassette shaking everyone out of their stupor "Nah, just messing with you. I wonder if anyone was actually worried for a moment. I'm touched if you did, but just know that even if you were to throw me into the oven it wouldn't hurt, let alone a cassette with my voice on it.
"I will say though, so glad I decided to put it in the oven. I can't wait to see your reactions. Anyway, this is the kitchen. Ingredients on the right, prepped dishes on the left. Please be careful handling some of those ingredients. The ones closer to the exit door are harder to prepare and potentially deadly
"If you kill yourself in the rest area, I'm not coming to save you. Well, that's a lie, I will save you, but you'll be out of the contest… Anyway, just be careful. The dishes on the prepared side are mostly safe except for the first two dishes in each row once again closest to the exit
"If you try to pick up any of these, a dome will show up and you will need to force you way through. It isn't exactly hard, but it's just a bit of a reminder so you don't mindlessly pick one of them up.
"Below each ingredient or dish will be its name and any major warnings you might want to keep note of, like it's super poisonous, or perhaps it will try to boil you alive. Personally I love the ones with a bit of poison, really adds to the flavour.
"You can find all the kitchen utensils in the far right corner, and under the counter on the left has ovens, while the right has chillers. You can ask the little one's if you need to hear about the room's details again."
"Well, Grace, grab what you want" said Skye sarcastically
Grace let her eyes roam the unbelievable array of foods before her. "Well, you know what. I think I'll have a shower first. This looks like effort"
Kat shrugged. *I wonder how immune to poison I am. Actually, maybe I should look for something reprepared that's extremely warm. I can imagine like a dragon soup that's just on fire. Then again… I wonder if my regeneration does work on poisons…
Nope no bad Kat. That's a really silly line of thinking. Stick to the boiling hot soup.. At least you know you're immune to that.*